Close Read: Guantánamo Playlist

Dozens of musicians and bands—R.E.M., Rosanne Cash, Trent Reznor—are backing a Freedom of Information Act suit to find out if their songs were among those used to torture prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The suit was filed by the National Security Archive, and the list of records it seeks runs the gamut from Aerosmith to Tupac Shakur, by way of Pink, Prince, and Queen. From the A.P.:

Based on documents that already have been made public and interviews with former detainees, the archive says the playlist featured cuts from AC/DC, Britney Spears, the Bee Gees, Marilyn Manson and many other groups. The Meow mix cat food jingle, the Barney theme song and an assortment of Sesame Street tunes also were pumped into detainee cells.

So we need to add the corruption of “Sesame Street” to the crimes of Guantánamo? They better not have messed with “Monster in the Mirror.” Perhaps Jon Stewart’s Gitmo muppet is not even a parody. (As for the Meow Mix jingle—did they use the actual commercial, or the Homer Simpson re-meow mix?) But the list of musicians is so ecumenical that it can’t even be used to tease anyone about his musical tastes—Britney Spears may be an instrument of torture, but James Taylor and Matchbox Twenty are there, too. Music as torture is not about bad music: it’s about volume, disorientation, and, above all, about control, or lack of control (a person who can’t turn the music off, or even pick Prince over Pink, is powerless). The practice supposedly ended before the Bush Administration left office; according to the Washington Post, the musicians, for the moment, just want to find out if their songs were among those played:

They say they will explore legal options once the songs are known. It is unclear what, if any, recourse they may have.

Could they be owed royalties? Does the Pentagon have an iTunes account, or does the C.I.A., or were these songs downloaded illegally?

The Post notes that

Another former prisoner, Binyam Mohamed, told Human Rights Watch that he had been forced to listen to the rapper Eminem’s song “The Real Slim Shady” for 20 days.

The real Binyam Mohamed has stood up—at least, he’s getting closer. Mohamed is now living in Britain, and has filed suit to get access to documents showing how he was tortured. (Glenn Greenwald has been following the case.) But some key paragraphs—they are said to involve razor blades—were redacted, because the British Foreign Office argued that revealing what happened to Mohamed while he was in American custody would endanger Britain’s national security. How did they figure that? There was what the court called a “threat” from the Bush Administration (affirmed, sadly, under Obama) that if the British told on us we might not tell them secrets any more—even if those secrets involved plots against Britain. In other words, the enemy was us. But now the British High Court’s judges, in what the Guardian called a “devastating” ruling that “made clear their anger,” have found that

the public interest in making the paragraphs public is overwhelming.

They’ll do so, pending one more appeal. Meanwhile, the Senate has voted to let the Obama Administration bring prisoners from Guantánamo to the United States to prosecute them. The House already passed the bill, after a loud fight last week. One wouldn’t think anyone would be against this: don’t people want to prosecute terrorists, if these are terrorists we’re talking about?

Pending one more game, the World Series will be the Phillies vs. Yankees. That’s a pretty tough one for a Mets fan.

Amy Davidson is a New Yorker staff writer. She is a regular Comment contributor for the magazine and writes a Web column, in which she covers war, sports, and everything in between.